I’ve done a bunch of pinball lists over the past year, ranging from the Best Pinball Machines for Home Use to the Best Pinball Machines Under $1000. Today I’m going to focus on affordable pinball machines, basically what games can anyone buy right now for not much money. Some of them might need some work, but that’s what makes them affordable. 🙂

Affordable pinball machine #1, EM Era

Almost everything from the EM (Electro-mechanical, basically the games that had scoring reels) era is pretty affordable, with most ranging from free to $500 (which a few outliers). Almost all of the ones you see on craigslist are in some state of not working, but luckily there are tons of guides out there on how to repair them.

Are they fun? Absolutely. Some a lot more than others. They’re also very heavy, especially if you get the 4 player versions which can really give you a workout when moving them. Typical problems are the reels stick and don’t score right or the game won’t even start up at all.

The best place to go to fix EM problems is Clay’s Repairing EM guide. Clay has wrote a bunch of guides over the years, a true asset to the community. I used to use his guides a bunch when I was first starting out. As the supply of project games has dried up though, I haven’t used them as much.

If I was trying to find an affordable pinball machine, EM’s is where I’d start as there are tons of them around and can be had for almost nothing.

Pinball bargain #2

What’s the second best bargain? Gottlieb solid state games from the 80’s. Gottlieb made a bunch of digital games in the 80’s but were always considered way back of Bally and Williams, hence there game prices are way lower. I’ve seen a lot of Gottlieb games of that era go for dirt cheap (under $500) which is lower than every other digital pinball machine available.

Why do Gottlieb’s go for so cheap? I think the main reason is that their art and electronics were far behind Bally and Williams. They just didn’t make as good of games as those two and the prices reflect that. There are a lot of Gottlieb games that people aren’t even aware that they made. I know that even though I’ve been doing pinball for 13 years there are still some old games from them that pop up that I’ve never seen previously. I think it’s because collectors don’t usually have them. Hence, never get to see them unless someone is trying to sell one on craigslist.

Some of them are definitely more fun than their given credit. Although not cheap, Joker Poker is one my favorites of that era. Genie though is affordable and a ton of fun, as is Pinball Pool. IPDB.org is a great resource for checking out these older games. They have reviews and pictures for every game ever produced, which makes it a lot easier to decide whether you want it or now.

Cheap games #3

Although they’ve been trending upwards for a while, classic Stern titles from 1977 to 1984 are pretty affordable still. Some of the rarer ones like Stargazer are pushing $4k to $5k but others are still between $500 and $1k. You’ll see a lot of these available that need a little work, basically because the boards are a little hard to work with and are prone to acid damage and bad connections.

Stars is one of the games that isn’t the best looking game but has developed a reputation as a great player. Meteor is one you can find a lot and it’s both affordable and a great game. Most of them were produced in smaller numbers so you don’t see them super often. Also, due to the fact that weren’t in arcades as much as Williams and Bally, their prices are lower as a result (no nostalgia). I’ve owned Flight 2000 from this group, it was a fun game but the multiball mech took up an obscene amount of playfield space, lol. The Stern’s I’ve played also had really good spinners, better than other games of the era in my opinion.

Other deals?

So I’ve gone over three classes of games that you’ll find the most affordable games in. How else can you get a good deal on a game that’s not in any of those categories? There are few things you can do:

Learn how to repair games. It’s the #1 way to save money in this hobby.

Make friends with the local pinball scene. It will help you get an occasional deal.

Watch Craiglist, Facebook, local newspaper, etc for games every day. Often you can get a good deal just by watching these closely. Not sure if it’s a super good use of your time if there’s lots of competition though.

Estate sales. Lots of old games at these sales, often with owners and auction services that don’t know the values of the games. You can often get the games very cheap.

I’ve gotten games from all four of those. I used to get most of my games from #3 but the competition is so high now that I haven’t bought a game that way for years. Depends on your area though.

Hopefully this article was helpful you. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at gameroominfo@gmail.com.

Cable bills are annoying. There, I said it. Some months go by and you barely watch any TV, still big bill waiting for you regardless. Especially now, with Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc providing hours of TV that used to go to cable. For 12 years my family has been with Dish Network and we finally got internet recently that would finally allow streaming at a higher level. With us looking to cut some of our bills, we decided to finally look for some options.

Step One, Finding a Replacement For the Core Cable Channels

My family typically watches ESPN, Cartoon Network, HGTV, and then some movies on like TNT, AMC, etc. Looking at the packages available, it really came down to these choices:

Sling TV ($25 currently)

Playstation Vue ($45 currently)

Hulu TV ($40)

Hulu TV

I’ve owned Hulu before (not the live version though), and while I like their selection of new and older shows, it’s interface isn’t the greatest depending on the device plus I had weird issue a while back. Somebody hacked my account and changed my email address, so I couldn’t even access my own account anymore, lol. I’ve never had anything like that ever happen to me on anything, so I wasn’t too impressed there.

There should be some security protocols in place that like I have to approve the change somehow, because Hulu support is all account based. That means if you lose account access, you can’t access support unless you call.

But beyond that, at $40 plus a bunch more for add-ons, I didn’t feel like it brought enough value to the table. I’m trying to cut my bills, not just substitute one for another.

Playstation Vue

Playstation Vue has the best overall selection of channels for sure, at least for my interests. The one problem? It doesn’t work with the Xbox obviously, and it’s the streaming device of choice on two of my TV’s. It also doesn’t have WebOS support, which my other TV’s have. So more strikes against it. If it had better overall support for 3rd party devices, it would have been a contender for me. I do think that if you have devices that support it and you don’t mind the higher price, it’s probably the best option overall. It didn’t work for my situation, and honestly probably won’t work for a lot of people due to their device support limitations.

Sling TV

Sling TV kind of won by default for me then, because it’s cost was so much less ($25) plus it has support for WebOS, Xbox, Roku, etc, much like Hulu. Plus it had the core channels we wanted except for the Big 10 Network, one of its shortcoming unfortunately. Come Nebraska football season, I’m going to have to find another option, although I’m not sure what that is. But for $25 a month I can live with that. It does have one shortcoming in the cheaper package that may not work for everyone, basically you can only have one TV streaming at a time.

Sling TV Menu

For my family that isn’t a big deal because we don’t watch that much network TV anymore, but if you have 5 TV’s trying watch Sling at the same time, you’re going to need the upgraded package at $45. That also comes with some additional channels, but the value isn’t there like it is for the $25 package in my opinion.

Local Channels

The other problem when you go all streaming is, what do I do for local channels? Well luckily I just did this comparison HDHomeRun Vs Tablo Review and was able to see that for my case, Tablo would allow me to stream all of the local HD channels to all of my TV’s in my house. Why is this great? Because I won’t need:

to buy an extra antenna for every TV

don’t have setup and aim the antenna for every TV

can get good reception even in the basement

adds DVR features if wanted

Basically, it’s a killer deal if you want to watch local channels at all. My family noticed how much better the Tablo channels look than the Dish Network ones did, it’s a major upgrade. I think all the compression from the satellite feed really diminishes the quality but really isn’t noticeable until you use an antenna.

Streaming Quality Vs Dish

This is totally going to depend on your internet speed, but at our streaming speed (4.5 mbps) the Sling TV quality totally crushes the Dish Network quality we had on our 722k receiver. It was really noticeable right off the bat. However, Dish Network doesn’t get the occasional pause that Sling gets, and I think overall it’s a little more responsive in the GUI interface. I’m sure Sling will get there though eventually.

Saving on your Cable Bill, The Result

For my situation, we were paying $92.xx a month for Dish Network. That was with a 722k receiver, one of the lower channel packages, local channels, DVR, etc. During sports season it usually climbed into the 100+ range due to Cornhusker games being on channels not in our package.

With the new setup, we spent $140 on the Tablo initially, and then $25 a month for Sling TV. So basically in 2 months, we will have save $20 already, and every year from now on we’ll save ($92 * 12) – ( $25 * 12 ) = $804. Depending on your situation, it may even save you more.

The other added benefit is that there’s no cable box to rent, extra fees to pay, etc. And you can access it from anywhere, so when you go on a trip, you can stream it to any device you may have.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article makes you aware of the cost savings that are now available out there. Most people don’t know that streaming options that cost 50% to 75% less than their current bill exist out there, they think that the only options are to cut the cord completely or pay the high bill. I’m here to tell you there’s a different way that isn’t quite as painful as cutting the cord completely or as painful as paying that high bill every month.

If you’ve been looking for a way to cut the cord, two of the biggest players in the market are Tablo and HDHomeRun. TIVO is the other major player, but due to the cost I decided not to try them (significantly more expensive). I first bought the HDHomeRun to try, then bought the Tablo after being initially underwhelmed by the HDHomeRun. More to the review below.

HDHomeRun Initial Impressions

First impressions of the HDHomeRun were great. It was essentially just a box with power cord, place to hook up a network cable, and an antenna port. I hooked up the antenna, the power cord, and network cord. Then I went to the windows store to download the application. Initially it had to upgrade the software on the unit before I could use it, but after that was done, I was in business. I produced a really good image on my laptop, and was easy to change channels. The model I bought was this via my Amazon affiliate link:

At this point, I’m really excited. This was so easy so far. That’s when the issues started to happen. I moved to my first TV, an LG with WebOS installed. When I searched for the HDHomeRun app, I realized that it doesn’t exist for WebOS. Nor does it exist for the Roku’s I have for my TCL TV or external Roku box. The only things it worked on that I had were Xbox One’s, PS4’s, and computers, not the solution I was looking for. It doesn’t really do me much good to cut the cord to save money if I have to go buy an additional compatible media player for every TV.

HDHomeRun Dual Tuner

This frustration lead me to do a lot more research, as I was going with HDHomeRun initially due to all the positive reviews. I think if you had compatible TV’s with their app, it would be great. There is an option to use PLEX with the unit but it’s $4.99 a month as of this writing and evidently isn’t great according to the reviews (actually PLEX itself is great, it’s the live TV portion that’s not supposed to that great, at least as of now).

After doing a bunch of research, I determined that Tablo and TIVO were the other two major options. Tivo was a lot more expensive than Tablo. Also Tablo had all the TV support I needed that the HDHomeRun didn’t have (WebOS, Roku, etc). Picked up the Tablo dual tuner and started my next journey of setting it up.

Tablo Dual Tuner Initial Impressions

The Tablo setup was almost identical to the HDHomeRun from a hardware standpoint. It basically was hook up the antenna, plug in the power, and hook up the Ethernet cable. From there though, I went directly to one of my LG WebOS TV’s to download the Tablo app. It was a little difficult to find it at first since you have install it (and it isn’t in the default list). Once I figured that out though, it was easy to launch. FYI, Tablo is available through my Amazon affiliate link below:

They make a bunch of different models, honestly I wish I would have bought the one with DVR built in here. Once it launches, it takes anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute to connect and get everything ready. I’m not sure why there’s such a big variance in time, maybe it’s because of network usage in my house? In any case, it’s a little annoying but nothing too bad, just something you have to get used to. And honestly, it may just be my network, I have the Google Home 3 point Mesh Network. Most of the time the network work really well. Perhaps the bandwidth of the broadcasts it taxing it more than usual.

Tablo – DUAL LITE OTA DVR

Once you’ve selected a broadcast, you can use the remote to go to different channels. Note that the program you were on doesn’t continue when the channel menu comes up, so there’s no scrolling through the guide while watching unfortunately. Once you change channels though it works pretty well, changing pretty quickly with only an occasional hiccup in the first 15 to 30 seconds (buffering issue).

Tablo vs HDHomeRun, The Verdict

Well for my personal situation, Tablo is easily the winner in the Table vs HDHomeRun battle. In fact HDHomeRun never even got out of the gate due to their poor support for various operating systems. I think that if HDHomeRun ever got their software support upgraded or perhaps if all of your TV’s have an OS that supports HDHomeRun, it might be a great option. It was certainly the one I’d heard about the most, which is why I went with it initially.

Tablo honestly I’d never heard of until I started researching after my HDHomeRun woes. TIVO I’d heard of a ton, but not Tablo. Tablo though is everything we needed it to be. Could it use a little work in timing and performance? For sure. But it accomplishes what you need it to do very well, just as long as you don’t like to switch channels during commercial breaks all the time.

As a side note, I really liked the Terk antenna that came with the HDHomeRun bundle I bought. It seemed like it did a lot better job than the other antennas I had laying around that I’ve used in the past (rabbit ears, Christmas tree directional, etc). Ironically, I should note that it appeared like the Tablo got better reception than the HDHomeRun using that same Terk antenna, but I can’t 100% verify that. I just know that 2 of the channels on the HDHomeRun that were having reception issues didn’t appear to have issues on the Tablo for whatever reason.

There’s no doubt about it, when it comes to collectible pinball machines, Williams is the gold standard to which all others are held to. Throughout the 80’s and 90’s they made a ton of huge hits that are very sought after even today. The question for some people is “What are the best Williams pinball machines ever made?”. This post will go over the 15 best.

The Top Williams Pinball Machines List

#1) Medieval Madness. By all standards, it is the most sought after and collectible game Williams made. In fact, it was so popular that they even remade it a couple years because prices for the originals had gone over $10k. Why is it so popular? It’s the combination of working castle combined with killer rules and voices from people like Tina Fey (before she was famous). It’s a very challenging game that is also very popular with guests. Who doesn’t like to destroy a castle? Current cost is around $8k.

#2) Attack From Mars. The precursor to Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars is the game that made designer Brian Eddy famous. Featuring a giant saucer and hilarious voice quotes, Attack From Mars is the perfect mix of challenge and fun. Personally, it might be my favorite of all of their games (it’s close). It was also so popular that they remade it as well. It can be bought new right for as little as $6500 for the classic to $8000 for the LE.

#3) The Addams Family. As far as being recognizable by pinball players, there’s probably no bigger title than The Addams Family. It was the biggest hit in pinball history, selling more than any other pinball machine in history. Pat Lawlor became famous from the design, especially with the Thing hand that comes out and takes the ball. With original quotes from the actors and a full mansion to tour to get to the wizard mode, The Addams Family set a new standard for pinball machines.

#4) Twilight Zone. The followup by Pat Lawlor to The Addams Family, Twilight Zone was initially not super successful on route due to the shear amount of things required to keep it running. It was a little too complicated for new players, and when combined with the reliability issues, it suffered when compared to The Addams Family before it. However, later on collectors began to figure out how great the game is, and prices skyrocketed on it. It’s hard to name another pinball machine that has more stuff packed in, from the gumball machine to the powerball playfield.

#5) Star Trek: The Next Generation. A masterpiece by Steve Ritchie, the king of flow. Featuring 3 ramps, two rotating cannons, and callouts from the entire cast, Star Trek: The Next Generation set a new standard for immersion in a pinball machine. Featuring 7 missions to get to the Final Frontier, it’s a challenging game that keeps you coming back for more. I actually own this game in my collection, it’s a keeper for me. It’s one of the few games that actually has feature that fights back against you, the Borg ship that launches balls at you.

Star Trek The Next Generation Pinball Machine

#6) Monster Bash. Another game similar to Medieval Madness and Attack From Mars, it features the same programmer as those games, Lyman Sheets. You’ll actually see his name on a lot of the top games, he’s probably the most popular pinball programmer of all time along with Keith Johnson. Monster Bash has the same layout and humor that made the other two games I mentioned popular, only not quite as good in my opinion. It’s a little easier than the other two and usually doesn’t last as long in collections. They’re also remaking Monster Bash as well.

#7) Funhouse. The first game to feature a giant head on the playfield, Rudy has creeped people out for years. It was an amazing innovation at the time, and honestly it’s better than most of the things out today as far as playfield toys go. The fact that Rudy eats balls and talks make it a pretty cool experience, though he might scare younger children. Funhouse is the game that really started the whole 90’s Williams craze with all of the innovative playfield inventions.

#8) Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure. Another one of the early 90’s Supergames, Indiana Jones was big success. Another very popular game to collect, mainly due to the theme (as Williams had a bad habit of picking dud movies as themes a lot). It features a moving “Path of Adventure” in the back that is pretty cool, along with a rotating head on the side that works to release balls. My favorite part of the game was definitely the modes, they were excellent. Shooting wise, I don’t think it was as smooth as some of the other games of the era, mainly due to mode start bounce outs and drop target ricochets down the left outlane.

#9) Bram Stroker’s Dracula. The first game on the list with an undesirable theme, it more than makes up for it with some killer gameplay. The objective of the game is to start all three of the main multiballs together to get jackpots worth 30 million. The coolest thing about the game is the mist multiball, where the ball magically moves across the playfield and you have to knock it off with another ball. The theme can kind of drag down the ratings a little bit, but a lot of collectors have this game in their collection.

#10) Creature From The Black Lagoon. I used to own this game a while back, the theme isn’t what it appears at first glance. It’s really about drive in movies from the 50’s and 60’s, and the things associated with them. The objective of the game is to spell FILM to start mulitball and find the creature (which is actually a moving hologram under the playfield). It’s a very cool game overall, one that a lot of people would like to have in their collection.

#11) White Water. The game with the worst intro music I’ve heard in pinball. It actually gets pretty good in the rest of the game, but the beginning is so not motivating, lol. There’s a lot of cool things going on in this game, the playfield is super unique and the ruleset is as well. It’s basically about trying to get your raft down a stream to Wet Willie’s by shooting the lit shots. It sounds easy in practice but it get pretty difficult towards the end.

#12) Whirlwind. The first game with three spinning discs, it took the concept from Fireball and tripled the fun. The game actually has a fan on top that actually blows in your face at certain parts of the game, which is quite funny. Whirlwind itself is very fun but also simpler compared to most of the games on this list. The game is mainly about shooting the directional shots to lock balls for multiball. It’s not a super hard task, but with the discs the balls get shot down the outlanes a lot, especially on the right side.

#13) The Shadow. Another game with an undesirable theme. The movie was really hyped but was kind of a dud. Luckily for us, the pinball machine is awesome. It was actually be much higher on this list if the theme was a little better, it holds the game back some. The game offers three pretty innovative features, mainly the battlefield, the movable ramps, and the disappearing ball lock. The ball lock, for anyone who hasn’t seen it, it very cool to see. However, it’s also the number one thing that goes wrong on the game, as it wears the wood pretty badly and is sometime inconsistent with its throws as a result. Great game to have at home, as it’s very challenging.

#14) Congo. More bad themes! Man, Williams just knew how to pick every dud of the 90’s, lol. Congo the pinball machine is awesome though. For a long time when I was collecting, Congo was a pretty undesirable machine, but about 5 years ago it started to become really popular because people finally figured out how well it played and forgot about the theme. The main goal of the game is to collect 100 diamonds. Some diamonds are easy to get, but others are difficult.

#15) Theater of Magic. One of the most beautiful games in pinball. Everything about this game is aesthetically great. It’s the gold standard (along with Tales of the Arabian Nights) for pinball art packages. It doesn’t play quite as well as some of the other games on this list, mainly due to uninspired modes and callouts. It’s one of those games that with a slightly tweaked software package it would probably be ranked a little higher. Still, a game that’s definitely worth having.

Wrapup

Hopefully this 15 best Williams pinball machines list has been helpful in your search for great pinball machines. There are a lot of other cool pinball machines that I didn’t mention for one reason or another, like World Cup Soccer, NBA Fastbreak, Corvette, Firepower, etc. All of those games can be just as much fun for some people as the top games on this list, it’s all about what interests you have. Like I like basketball a lot, so NBA Fastbreak is one of my favorite pinball machines. Most collectors would scoff at that choice, but most collectors don’t like basketball either. 🙂

Looking for bargains in pinball? Look no further, you’ve found the definitive list for top pinball machines under 1000. Now what this list won’t include is any EM games. You might ask “why?”. Well mainly because almost all EM games are under 1000 except for the very best games, meaning that you can pretty much afford any of them already. The newer digital machines, finding quality used games under 1000 is a lot harder, which is why I wrote this list to help.

7 Top Pinball Machines Under 1000

These machines are in no particular order in this list. The hardest thing will be finding them in general, as the production numbers means that there is a limited amount per city. Note that these will all be used pinball machines under 1000, none of these are new. In fact the newest game is like 25 years old, lol. Now here’s the list!

Space Shuttle

Firepower

Paragon

Comet

Meteor

Harlem Globetrotters on Tour

Street Fighter II

Now I’m going to do a short overview of each game. Hopefully that will help give you a little more information on each game.

Space Shuttle Pinball Machine

Space Shuttle is a game that came out in the mid 80’s based around the super popular US Space Shuttle from NASA. It features a three ball multiball and some pretty fun gameplay. Space Shuttle, along with High Speed, are credited with turning around the pinball industry in the mid 80’s which was about to go under (as the whole arcade industry was in a slump at that time). It doesn’t have the best art package, but it is fun to play, and is especially good for new players.

Space Shuttle Backglass

Firepower Pinball Machine

Another game with multiball, Firepower was a huge hit in the early 80’s. Not the prettiest game, it makes up for that with a challenging playfield that makes you work for multiball. It’s also one of the first games to have speech, so it’s sound package is a little more advanced than some of the earlier games of that era. I owned this game for quite a while, I really liked the challenge.

Paragon Pinball Machine

Paragon is a classic Bally game from 1979. It’s famous for it’s killer art package and punishing gameplay. Paragon is definitely one of the harder games of that era, being slightly inaccurate will put you down the middle or over in the Beast Lair, a pop bumper over on the left hand side that can either save or drain your ball while you watch helplessly. I bought this game this year after wanting one for years, I always had a blast playing it at other people’s houses.

Comet Pinball Machine

Comet is a classic Williams machine that came out after Space Shuttle’s success. It was the first game to feature a million point shot, which continued the pinball trend of point inflation. It was made by designer Python Angelo, who would later come out with more amusement park games like Cyclone and Hurricane. It’s a very straight forward game, good for new players. The one bad thing is that it did tend to get played a lot. There are a lot of really worn games out there for sale.

Meteor Pinball Machine

The most produced classic Stern, Meteor is regarded as one of the best games of that era. Luckily, its high production means that it also stays under the 1000 mark most of the time, unlike a lot of the other classic Sterns which are pretty rare for the most part. The biggest problem you’ll have when you find this game is that a lot of the time they’re not working. For some reason, this is a popular game to have sitting around not working. I don’t know how many of them I’ve seen over the years in various states of disarray.

Harlem Globetrotters on Tour Pinball Machine

One of the under appreciated games of the era, I think the fact that the Globetrotters aren’t as popular today has led to this game sneaking under the radar for so long. Even though it isn’t a multiball game, it’s a challenging game with a big bonus opportunity and three spinners to rip. I wouldn’t mind owning one of these someday. I own NBA Fastbreak, another basketball game, and this would look pretty good beside it. Like most Bally games of the era, getting a big bonus is the key to scoring high.

Street Fighter II Pinball Machine

A DMD game under 1000? Yep, there’s really only one, Street Fighter II can sometimes be had for that price. It’s a combination of the fact that the art is awful, it’s a Gottlieb, and it’ not a great pinball theme. I honestly don’t think the game is that bad at all, but most people turn their nose up at it. The goal of the game is progress through beating all of the fighters. I think part of the problem is the game is a little linear in nature, but hey, a DMD for 1000 can’t be all bad, right?

Wrapup

Hopefully this has helped give you some ideas of some good used cheaper machines that you could pick up for your home. If you like this article, I also wrote “Best Pinball Machines for Home Use” that you might want to check out.